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What is assisted suicide?

Assisted suicide (physician
or otherwise) is where a drug is prescribed/provided for the express purpose of
enabling a person to kill themselves.

If the person cannot take the poison
themselves, a physician or someone else may be asked to assist. This then becomes euthanasia.

As stated by the World Medical Association, physician assisted suicide, like euthanasia, is unethical and must be condemned by the medical profession.

Suicide
is always a tragedy and the effect of a suicide reaches well beyond the
individual who takes their life. The State
Government plans
to spend $5.2 million on
suicide
prevention
throughout 2016-2017. However, at
the same time, they plan to open the door to suicide for certain groups of people
by legislating for euthanasia and physician assisted suicide.

It
is incoherent and a contradiction to promote suicide as a tragedy as well as
good public policy at the same time.

In
Belgium and the Netherlands, deaths by euthanasia account for 4% of all deaths. If we
had the same level of response here – euthanasia would be the sixth leading cause of death in Australia –
double the
current suicide
rate and five
times the current annual road toll.